Why are some iPhone photos saved as PNG instead of JPG, and does that mean they were altered?
Asked 5/30/2014
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I took a photo on my iPhone and was told that because the image file has a .png extension, it must have been edited or tampered with. I know I took the photo at that time. Why would some images from an iPhone be PNG files instead of JPG? Could this happen because of screenshots, saving/exporting, or cloud services? Does a PNG file mean the photo content was actually changed?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
12y ago
2 Answers
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The short answer is yes (unless you have a camera that can output PNG files (which, I believe, is very few)).
The long answer is (in general) sort of. As mentioned in the comments, file conversion is, technically, a form of alteration and so, for the vast majority of photos, having a .PNG extension means that they has been altered. This does not mean that the content of the photograph has been altered (at least, in a human sense), and not having a .PNG file extension does not mean that the file hasn't been edited. Your PNG files may still have some EXIF data that includes Capture date and time, camera model etc. that will allow you to determine and get some way to proving the actual time the photo was taken.
The conversion to PNG could come from where and how you are saving the files after the photos have been taken. For instance, some cloud services may automatically convert image files to PNG (maybe for compression, etc).
Originally by user10405. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user10405
12y ago
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Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.
A .png extension does not by itself prove a photo was tampered with.
On iPhones, normal camera photos are typically saved as JPEG/HEIC, while screenshots are commonly saved as PNG. So if an image is PNG, it often means it was exported, converted, or created as a screenshot rather than being the original camera file.
Technically, converting a file to PNG is an alteration of the file format, but that is not the same thing as changing the visual content of the photo. A PNG may still show the same scene exactly as captured.
Also, the reverse is true: a JPG file is not proof that an image was never edited.
If you need evidence of when the image was taken, check its metadata/EXIF. That may include capture date, time, and device model, depending on how the file was saved or transferred. An EXIF viewer app on the phone or a computer can help inspect this.
So: PNG usually suggests the file was converted or is a screenshot, not necessarily that the picture itself was falsified.
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